Legal marijuana is going to be worse for smokers

New policies are a Liberal smokescreen to increase regulation, profit

Much controversy has been made over plans by Justin Trudeau and the newly-elected Liberal Party to legalize marijuana across Canada. Potheads are rejoicing in a haze of smoke and Depeche Mode music, and it would not be a stretch to say that Trudeau’s legalization policy easily secured him the stoner vote. These dimwits will get the opposite of what they’re expecting.

What Trudeau’s Liberals have in store for Canadians is not increased freedom to smoke marijuana, but rather a system where the government sells to consumers directly, jacks up the prices with heavy taxation (a la cigarettes and booze), and restricts who can and can’t buy it.

According to the Liberal party website, “To ensure that we keep marijuana out of the hands of children, and the profits out of the hands of criminals, we will legalize, regulate, and restrict access to marijuana.” Did they forget that their own party made these people criminals in 1923, or are they jealous of the profit margins?

Legalization is supposed to make it easier for Canadians to smoke, but Trudeau has only announced plans to make it harder. In a nutshell, that’s why I’m a conservative – I want marijuana to be legalized because it’s none of the government’s business what people do in private, and trying to control them would be a waste of tax dollars. Trudeau, the former BC snowboard instructor, wants weed to be legal so that he can profit from it, and control who gets to use it. That’s not freedom – that’s the opposite.

Through his legalization platform, Trudeau intends to replace your drug dealer. He also intends to charge more money than your current dealer, and intends to tell you when, where, and how to consume his product. He will tell you how much you are allowed to use in a day. He will not be incentivized to sell quality drugs, because he will have a government-enforced monopoly. He will also undoubtedly secure this monopoly through armed intervention with any competition. The Liberals promise “stronger laws to punish more severely…those who sell it outside of the new regulatory framework.” If you thought penalties for drug distribution were harsh under Harper, wait until the dealers are costing the government income directly.

People who think the stigma around pot-smoking is going to go away under the Libs are sadly mistaken. Liberals love to stigmatize even more than they love to regulate, and I predict that anyone who buys weed a little too regularly from their government supplier will eventually be fingerprinted, added to a national registry, and forced to attend some kind of “drug awareness education” seminars like the people who get too many points on their driver’s license. Or they could always just cut you off entirely – did I mention they’ll have a monopoly?

On the topic of regulation, it’s important to remember that the Liberals will be writing all of these new regulations themselves. If they want to say that nobody under the age of 43 can smoke marijuana, restrict purchases to a gram a year per family (for $10,000), and cut it with 50 per cent sawdust, they can still say that they’ve legalized it. Does anyone else see the problem with giving a single body a total monopoly over an industry, and then allowing that same body to write and enforce all the regulations themselves?

It’s true that Harper and his Tories had no plans to change their stern anti-drug policies this election. Even still, I predict fond remembrances of how easy it was to buy drugs under the Conservatives, and how much cheaper and better the drugs were once you got them. Sure, the police would arrest those who smoked marijuana openly, but nobody was kicking down doors over that joint you smoked on your back porch after dark, or that one potted plant looks a little different from the others. Under Trudeau, drug policies will need to become harsher than ever in order to prevent anyone but the government from growing or selling independently.

What stoners are expecting from the Liberal government is Liberty, but what they’ll get is the opposite. Restriction and regulation is the true name of the game for the Liberals, and legalization is simply a means to that end.

About Taylor Macpherson

"Taylor MacPherson, News Editor: Taylor MacPherson was born in Saskatoon, and is currently completing an English degree at U of R. In his spare time, which is largely nonexistent, he enjoys writing fiction and film criticism, and reading cheap American thrillers."

2 comments

Give peace a chance. The Liberals have not announced how they will regulate cannabis. They say they intend to strike up a task force, including federal, provincial and municipal stakeholders, doctors, cops, criminologists and hopefully economists, drug policy experts, compassion clubs and cannabis consumers. They will look at what works and what doesn’t in Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, etc.

The price, quality and convenience will need to be competitive with the black market. Every expert they consult and every study of the subject they review will tell them so. About 15 per cent of tobacco in Canada comes the black market. When tobacco taxes are hiked, the black market grows, and visa versa.

About Taylor Macpherson

"Taylor MacPherson, News Editor: Taylor MacPherson was born in Saskatoon, and is currently completing an English degree at U of R. In his spare time, which is largely nonexistent, he enjoys writing fiction and film criticism, and reading cheap American thrillers."